Chapter 14: Hitting The Fan and a New Friend

A week had passed, but we hadn’t had Garth at the house yet. Tuesday, Wendy reported that she had met with him and that he had a clean report from his clinic. He had promised to come over and visit with Lauren and Scott on the coming weekend.

And then, the shit hit the fan.

Wednesday, I had gotten home about five o’clock. Tracy pulled up beside me in Wendy’s car that they’d used to commute to the university, only Wendy wasn’t with her, like usual. Tracy got out and slammed the door so hard that I feared the glass would break. She stomped past me into the house, and I heard the door to their ‘official’ room slam a moment later.

Tracy was furious at something. She’d given me a weak smile as she’d stomped past, so I was reasonably sure that whatever was wrong I wasn’t the cause. Of course, with women, I couldn’t be sure. I wondered where Wendy was and how she was getting home.

I yelled upstairs to Tracy about dinner. “I thought we’d go out to dinner. Any problem with that?”

Tracy came to the top of the stairs, wearing her rather attractive school clothes. She said, “I’d love to go to dinner with you. We can forget about the ... SLUT.” She yelled the last word to be sure I heard her.

“Huh?” I muttered.

Before I could ask, Tracy had gone back into her study room and slammed the door. I figured that I’d let her cool down from whatever her upset was. Obviously, it had something to do with Wendy.

By six o’clock, there was no sign of Wendy. I went upstairs and knocked on Tracy’s door. I heard a weak, “Come in.”

Tracy had just sat up on her bed. She’d been crying. I could see the large wet spot on her pillow. “Baby, what’s wrong?” I sat on the bed and stroked her arm tenderly.

She bawled, “I can’t tell you. Wendy has to tell you. She’s fucked up EVERYTHING! I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” As I sat beside her, she launched herself into my arms and cried some more. I stoked her long hair and rocked her as we sat. Her tears were soaking my golf shirt.

“Tracy, we’ll work through whatever has happened, especially between you two. I know we’re in an unusual relationship that produces stress, and that stress will bubble over once in a while and we’ll get angry with each other for seemingly little things.”

Tracy sniffed, “This was a big thing – really big.”

I went on, “We have to talk about whatever happens between us, and try to soothe over any hurt feelings or things that aren’t going quite right. I think we have been coasting along trusting that we didn’t have to talk much about our relationship or being together. I include Alice and Misty in that, too. We’re...”

From the doorway, Wendy spoke loudly at in angry, “Tracy, YOU BITCH. You left me stranded on campus and stole my fucking car. What is wrong with you?”

Tracy jumped up and faced off with Wendy from six feet away. She yelled at her with clenched fists, “Well, SLUT, at least I wasn’t the one that people were watching get fucked in the student parking lot. Why don’t you tell Matt what you were doing? I’m sure he’d like the juicy details. They should come from you. You’ve fucked up our whole relationship. Did you even consider that some of us might not want you around – like Matt and me and Alice and Misty and anybody else you know? You should be ashamed of yourself, Slut!”

Wendy looked surprised and suddenly hurt, as though she hadn’t considered some important angle to something she did. I wasn’t that dumb. I was suddenly very hurt about what I’d heard that Wendy had been doing. She’d been fucking in somebody’s car and got caught?”

I asked her in a serious tone, “What’d you do?” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but failed.

She said, “I saw Garth yesterday and again today. Today, we got kind of physical and he suggested we go and make out in his car. I like him and I liked his idea. We did and got carried away and ... well, we had sex. A couple of students happened to see us, one of them was Tracy. She started screaming at us, read us the riot act, and then took my car and ... I guess ... came home.”

I was speechless. For a long moment I didn’t know what to say. I ran through the different ways that I could approach the situation, but I was hurting. I decided to tell what I was feeling.

“Wendy, I’m suddenly very hurt, too. My gut just knotted up and I’m in pain. I feel that you violated our trust. I’m kind of speechless and my brain is a jumble of pretty raw emotions suddenly.”

Wendy pleaded, “But, I thought we had the freedom to do something like this. I’m sorry if I crossed some boundary. I didn’t even know we had a boundary. We have sex around here so freely with each other, and even with new people that have come along like Scott, Lauren, and Misty. I thought one of the reasons Garth was being introduced to all of us was to add another male to our mix.” She sounded apologetic.

Tracy leapt in, “The key phrase in what you just said was ‘with each other’. We’ve always been together, at home, here, when we had sex with somebody new. We didn’t just get ‘carried away’, as you said, and then start fucking them in their fucking car in the fucking student parking lot.” Her anger was palpable.

I shook my head and walked out. I said, “I need a glass of wine. I’ll be downstairs. We’re going out to dinner – eventually – I think.” I turned swiftly and strode out of the room leaving the two of them.

I poured myself a glass after opening one of the bottles that Scott and Lauren had brought a week earlier. This was a strange situation, and I forced myself to use my head and tried to be less emotional about the situation. I was almost crying, however.

I could hear angry voices from upstairs. I yelled up at the top of my lungs, “Please come downstairs – both of you.” I realized that now I sounded angry. I had to stop that. Why was I angry? Was I violated by Wendy’s ... infidelity to all of us? Hmmmm.

The two of them trooped down the stairs, still in their school clothes. The noise of their footsteps proved they were both angry. Since the rediscovery of Penny’s wardrobe and a mutual decision to dress up and look sharp on campus, versus the usual grungy modes of dress for co-eds, the girls had mostly worn low heels, stovepipe slacks – some that fit their butts like spray-on paint, and a nice top or blouse, sometimes with a blazer. They reminded me of young lawyers because of how professional they looked.

The two marched into the kitchen and sat on stools about as far from each other as they could be and still have a seat in the same room. They both looked at me, as if for guidance or a sentence about the situation.

I spoke in a normal tone and tried to purge my bad reaction from my voice. “We’ve had some loose talk about boundaries in our relationship, and several times we’ve even referred to what we have with each other as an ‘open relationship’.

“So, what has happened is that I, and apparently Tracy, had a boundary that might be stated as, ‘Sex between the family partners and friends will be conducted when all of us are together and at home.’ We had defined the partners initially as you two and Penny, and then Alice came along after Penny passed. You brought in Scott and Lauren, and as far as I know all the sex with them has been here with the rest of us. Misty seemed welcome, but again all the sexual stuff occurred here.

“I have to confess that I was torn a little when the two of you started to enjoy sex with Scott, but I was getting to be with Lauren, and I like her a lot, so, that was a treat – so I couldn’t and didn’t complain. Now, I think of the two of them as part of our group. Of course, Alice and now Misty are ‘in’.

“Further, I admit that we do have a sexual imbalance, assuming that the preferred mode of lovemaking is heterosexual. I’ve observed that all of you girls have behaved in a bisexual or sapphic way with each other. I find that exciting to watch, actually.” I felt that I was rambling, but the rest of my brain was very active with thoughts about our group and what the rules should be.

Tracy said, “But what do you do about what Wendy did?”

I turned to her, “Wendy, do you think you did something wrong?”

She blushed, “Only that I got caught fucking in the parking lot. That wasn’t a good idea, and I should have known better than to do something like that in public. Regarding having sex with Garth, I had a different boundary or maybe none at all in that area. I thought we had an open relationship and that that meant we could have sex with others and that we didn’t have to wait until we were all together or even here at the house.”

I asked, “How do you feel about Tracy and me?”

Wendy looked shocked and tears ran from her eyes In a choked up voice, she said, “I love both of you – very much. Tracy, you’re my best friend and confidant and lifelong companion. Moreover, I love making love with you. The fact that we love each other, makes the lesbian sex we have so wonderfully enjoyable that I never want to stop.

“Matt, I love you. You have been my hero from the instant that we met, but I don’t have ordinary hero worship that might fade. I love you for the man that you are, the care that you devote to me – to us, and I see you also as a lifetime partner.

“As far as Garth is concerned, he’s a nice guy that I like a lot. Lauren’s friend is a good one and I think that he’ll fit in well with the rest of us – even Alice and Misty. He’s certainly older than Tracy and me, and Lauren or Scott, but I don’t think he’s thirty, like you Matt. I consider him ‘hot’, and he turns me on – just the way the two of you do.

“I’m so sorry for crossing the boundary. I just didn’t even think one was there.”

I asked, “How would you feel if Tracy had been the one fucking him in his car?”

Wendy shrugged, “I would have hoped that she was having a great experience and didn’t get spotted by any other students. In a similar situation, I would not have started a loud rant in the parking lot looking into the car and shouting so that other students came and peeked at us, too. That was, I admit, very embarrassing.”

“So, you wouldn’t have been angry and thought that she was breaking up the relationships on the home front in favor for some new stud of a guy?”

“God, no.” She turned to Tracy, “If that’s what you thought, you were completely wrong. I have no desire to break up anything here at home ... with Matt ... with anybody. As time goes by, I hope our union gets stronger and stronger. I see us maybe with a few more people, just for fun, but we all love each other. Hell, in the long-term, I want him to father our children.”

I asked, “And how does sex with people outside our core group affect that union?”

Wendy looked puzzled, “I can’t say that it does, unless we let it. We have a choice, I guess. And, that comes back to whether any of us see a boundary there as you stated before. I obviously didn’t, and I’m sorry that my empathic abilities didn’t sense that you two did have that boundary. I’m really deeply sorry that I hurt the two of you.”

I stood and went to Wendy. I hugged her. I turned and did the same Tracy. She was thoughtful.

Tracy said to her friend, “I’m sorry that I overreacted. I jumped to a wrong conclusion about the impact of your fucking with Garth – with anybody outside what seems to be our chosen group.”

I said, “So, if I get interested in Holly at work, and sometime the two of us shack-up over a long lunch period, how will you two feel?”

After a long silence, Wendy asked, “Who’s Holly? Is she that hot rep in marketing?”

I nodded.

“Fuck. I’d do her in an instant. Fuck her, and then bring her home for the rest of us to play with. She’d be a great addition. Have you flirted with her?”

I chuckled, for the first time defusing the tense situation, even within, “Not for one instant. I barely know the woman, but I do think that she’s pretty ‘hot’. I think every guy that’s been willing to stick their neck out has asked her out, but they’ve also been shot down as far as I know. I think that she’s engaged.”

I turned to Tracy, “How’re you feeling right now?”

She snuffled into a Kleenex, “A lot better. We HAVE to talk about stuff like this before hand – and agree. We need little scenarios like you just threw out for us to consider and talk about.” She paused and I saw the devilish look cross her face. She went on, “Maybe tomorrow, I’ll fuck Garth in the parking lot – or better yet, his apartment.”

After Saturday’s shopping, errands, housekeeping, and lunch had been completed, the three women that seemed to be living with me most of the time adopted the monokini and topless motif for the back patio. Wendy and Tracy were full time live-ins, and Alice came and went on an irregular schedule. Misty had a pile of work that day and hoped to join us later, but wasn’t certain that she’d be able to come until Sunday.

Wendy was sitting at a table with me talking about her math courses and how various parts of them might apply to her computer science degree. Alice and Tracy had just gotten out of the pool after a swim. The three of them were only wearing their bikini bottoms, a point that left me with a partly but perpetually inflated dick.